The Red Knife by Emmaline Borquois
by Emmaline Borquois
Summary: This is my story I'm working on. Please don't steal the idea, or my patent lawyer father will sue hehehe xD It may not seem like mythology quite yet, but it will as the chapters develop.


**THE RED KNIFE**

**Prologue**

The long red knife lay in the open briefcase. He paced along in his Italian leather shoes, adjusting his silk midnight blue tie, while his captive sat and thought. Tethered to a chair in front of Death, that was all she could really do: think. She thought of her family, of what happened up to this point. She thought of how he would hurt her, what he could do to her.

She also thought of the choices. There are choices, he had said to her. The Pear, deep slits on each limb, poison injected through her veins, hung slowly by a mechanical rope; they all lead to her slow and painful death.

Then there was the knife. This knife was metal hell, he had told her. One touch, and her body would burn with no flame, blood would appear from invisible wounds, and she would stiffen and paralyze like a snake was coiled around her torso.

These were her choices.

She had heard of it in the stories she'd researched. It was welded by Satan's believers in the magma filled pits of the Tambora volcano merely days before its eruption in 1815. They say it is what caused the deaths of every single ninety-two thousand lives that lived then, starting the famine and disease. Later, it's rumored that its skills were used in the Great Potato Famine, killing hundreds of thousands and blaming it on the war and starvation. It started multiple fires throughout the world, including New Zealand, America, China, and Canada. It was what inspired Adolf Hitler to begin blitzkrieg upon the world. And every time it was wielded by one man, the exact man pacing the floor right now.

Or that is what she assumed.

After all her months in research, this is what would end it. Her final choice. She knew it was a game, but she didn't know the rules, didn't know how he could achieve checkmate as she stood there, watching. She didn't know how to play, how to win. He did. He had been doing it for about two hundred years now. He had mastered it. He twisted his words, turning and churning them until you seemed to only have one choice. He'd done this to her and many other victims.

More lullifying pacing for an hour or so, when she had made her choice.

"The knife," she said in a hoarse voice.

"What was that?" he smirked.

"You heard me, I want the knife." She cleared her throat. "The knife."

He crouched to her level. "They always do. But you know that, don't you? You've been following me, you little bitch."

She glared at him, realizing how stupid she'd been. Of course he knew all this time. He'd supposedly been alive for nearly 200 years, he'd know more than the average roadside killer would know. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Just get it over with," she declared, head now held high.

He stood up and prepared the knife, chuckling at her false sense of pride. Putting on a thick pair of leather gloves, he lifted the weapon into the light. Taking a thick bark cloth from his inner pocket of his suit, he wiped the knife clean. She watched him as he brought it close to her chocolate flesh.

"I assume you think it will be living hell, death in one slice. Wrong. It is much, much worse than that. Much, much worse."

"How would you know?" she asked, wanting to spit in his face, still seeming calm in spite of the action Death would create soon.

"I've survived it, I've escaped its grasping breaths, its bloody end, its burning exit from this world. It wasn't much fun to endure, but I got quite a reward. Living every day like it may be my last, I can experience things most never experience. I live and love sensations no one can know for long. Oh how great it is, the thrill, the excitement." He paused. "But enough with my blabbering. We must get to the show, my dear," he sneered. A quick shiver went through her spine as the knife caught the light for a brief second.

"One more question?"

"Sure, why not, since it'll be your last."

A swift but grand pause, as if she was trying to be dramatic, despite the weapon she had chosen Death to use so close to her face. "Why?"

This one question struck him. He was speechless, for once. He was at a loss for words. It was her turn to smirk. He thought for a moment, then replied, "As Morrie Schwartz said, 'Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.' Maybe that's why I do it, to make others feel empathy while I feel nothing. But you, you're an exception. You know too much. Of course, you must stop now. Did you not get the idea with your family?"

Her pride turned to sadness as she remembered the corpse of her brother, father, mother. He continued on.

"But for the others, it may be because it shows how living long can cause a hunger for power, for a sign to tell everyone that I am the alpha, the one above all else. It may be because I'm bored and have gone crazy and wish to have a bit of fun. It may even be because I want to prove I can live longer than the rest of you, especially if I do this. But it's not. I don't want to tell quite yet, but it for sure is none of those."

He looked into the reflection of the knife, almost seeming bored. "That's enough chit chat for now, my dear. Let's get this going. I have other appointments to get to. They've been set back because of this little fiasco of yours." He wiped the knife once again, as a quick lightning zap went through the metal.

She was surprisingly much calmer now, almost at peace. She knew she would see her family again; she would see her mother and father, her big brother. She could see her favorite pet dog, Ruby, from when she was only seven. She soberly smiled at the memories, remembering her life.

He untied the ropes.

She sat there, breathing, waiting, wanting to run and wanting it to end already. Then, feeling his quick, deadly slice go deep into her abdomen, she smiled. She felt the burning first, the burning of a million flames on every nerve. Ah, there was the blood, rushing like a dam had burst, exploding from her skin, invisible knives slicing her soft flesh. She choked, drowning in the red liquid that had given her life before. The lightning zapped from her head to toes and back, shudders and shivers throughout her body. No longer in her person, but in a limbo, needing to live; she was writhing on the floor, starving for normality.

As she stared up at his silhouette, she thought, 'So this is what they went through before the end. This is what he went through.'

He bent down, face appearing before her eyes, and he smiled. It was a deep, dark, evil smile, a smirk of the devil, the final smile Death gives as he receives his prey. "This is my favorite part right here, my dear."

As she drifted off into the darkness, departing from this world and entered the next, he stepped away, replacing the knife and removing the gloves. He simply stated, "Maybe that's why I do this..."

"Maybe..."


End file.
